PART I

He moved with the focused cadence of a dustbowl era preacher. His words, wrapped in a soft Shenandoah accent, flowed like lyrics from some old time hymn. Every eye in the conference hall trained on him as if by command. I sat at full attention, nodding my head in agreement and taking notes as fast as I could, all the while suppressing the urge to jump up and offer a hearty "Amen." He turned towards the audience and paused for a moment. We were hovering on the brink of his silence when he warned, "You're only one toad strangler away from disaster."

I didn't have any idea what a toad strangler was, but it certainly didn't sound good. The mere mention of it caused my pen to lurch from my grip as I wrote furiously in my notebook. I caught it before it hit the floor. Looking up from my notes, rescued pen well in hand, I saw brows crunched in confusion all around. I wasn't the only one in the room who didn't know what it meant.

If I was only one of these things away from disaster maybe I should start running. My bewildered glances flitted from one puzzled face to another. From the looks of things we were all considering making a run for it. If there was going to be a rush for the door to escape this impending toad strangler I was going to need a head start. I have short legs.

Joel Salatin, the featured speaker at the 15th Annual Wisconsin Grazing Conference, also noticed the room full of scrunched mid-western foreheads and befuddled glances. Without missing a beat, he explained how toad strangler, loosely translated into northern dialects, means gully washer or downpour.

Phew, there wasn't going to be running after all. I went back to taking notes or, as I would refer to it days later when I was forced to decipher my own hand writing, scribbling.

Mr. Salatin is right; most of us are just one toad strangler away from destruction. Agricultural land in the United States is eroding at a startling six tons per acre per year. It's estimated the erosion, compaction and toxic death of America's cropland costs our economy 44 billion dollars each year in lost agricultural production. Poor farming practices, climate change and urbanization are the culprits.

If anyone knows about poor soil it would be Joel Salatin and his family. In 1961 his parents purchased what he calls, "the most worn-out, eroded, abused farm in the area." According to Mr. Salatin, there were acres of ground on the farm where there wasn't even enough soil to drive in a small post for an electric fence. His father made post holders out of old tires and short pieces of metal tubing, much like the posts used for volley ball nets. They loaded them into the back of a pick-up truck and set about making a fence for their animals.

After 40-odd years of observing nature's patterns and instinctively responding to the needs of the land around them, the Salatins have nurtured their farm back to life, an abundant life. The yawning gullies, some deeper than 10 feet in 1961, have steadily filled in and disappeared. Topsoil has built up and the land is flourishing. Joel Salatin calls his intuitive farming practices forgiveness farming. He believes this method is the key to reversing the degradation of our planet.

One of the standards of forgiveness farming is keyline design, a deliberate system for controlling the water resources of rural and urban lands. This concept was developed in Australia by P.A. Yoemans and published in his work, "The Keyline Plan," in 1954. This pioneering method examines the landscape and identifies the natural water courses. The point of contour where valleys and low lands abruptly rise is known as the keypoint. The natural curve of the land passing through this point is the keyline. The more contoured the landscape the more keylines there are. If they aren't properly managed they contribute heavily to erosion from run off caused by toad stranglers and gully washers.

One of the ways to manage the flow of water around ridge lines is to plant trees, shrubs, grass, and prairie plants parallel to the channels. The controlled current can be diverted into ponds or irrigation dams. Consequently, a hard rain becomes a resource and a blessing instead of a curse.

Mr. Salatin says there are no 90-degree fence angles on his farm; corners are non-existent. His fencing system flows with the contours of the land, going around areas susceptible to erosion.

He has a hard time convincing farmers to give up their 90-degree corners. We like our fields nice and square. Farmers tend to fence every last foot of anything that remotely resembles usable ground, even if it means fencing in deep crevices and eroded areas. Many of us have ruts and gullies in our fields deep enough to twist hitches and tilt hay racks so hard it makes our hearts race and our knuckles throb as we clench the wheel and steer for all we're worth to straighten ourselves out. The forgiveness farming model asks us to fence around these wounds and allow them to heal.

Forgiveness farming includes intensive management of pastures. At Polyface Farm, the new name for the old Salatin homestead, every animal has its turn on pasture and each one contributes to the rhythms of a healthy land. Cattle are fed strictly grass in an aggressive grazing system. They are rotated to a new section of pasture every day using portable electric fences.

The area in which they are left to graze is relatively small. This is to encourage a sense of competition in the animal, forcing it to eat its fill quickly and shortening the amount of time spent eating. This allows the cows to spend more time ruminating. Rumination is the process by which bovine bodies produce meat and milk. The rational conclusion, as Joel Salatin points out, is a longer rumination period produces more meat and milk, resulting in better profits for farmers. That's what I call a real cash cow.

A couple of days after the cows have moved off a piece of pasture the Eggmobile moves in. Eggmobile? I looked up from my notes, expecting to see something akin to the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile, only shaped like an egg, on the presentation screen. Now, that would be a site to see in a pasture. Instead, there was a picture of what we call a chicken tractor in my neck of the woods. Darn, I was sort of hoping for the giant egg thing.

Mr. Salatin says chickens are pasture sanitizers. They scratch in the cow pies looking for fly larvae, breaking up the mass and encouraging new growth. He recommends waiting a day or two after the cows have left before hauling the chickens in. It takes three or four days for the fly larvae to mature after crash landing behind a cow. For the first couple of days they are too small to be seen by even the sharpest of chicken eyes and are easily overlooked, ensuring a large fly hatch in a few days. Proper timing of the cow-chicken rotation dramatically reduces the number of flies on the animals and promotes healthy pastures.

A lady in front of me raised her hand. She had questions, very good questions. "How do you get your chickens to go in the Eggmobile at night? How do you stop them from roosting underneath?"

"Well," he shuffled a little. A wide grin broke loose across his face and he replied, "We train them to go in."

Okay, now he was just inviting skepticism. Whoever heard of training chickens? You can train chickens?

The lady with the raised hand wanted some clarification too, "How on earth do you train them?"

I leaned forward, maybe too far, I could smell the aftershave of the gentleman in front of me and I'm pretty sure I was breathing coffee fumes on his head. The pause was impeccably timed; the answer delivered smoothly, like strawberries on fancy cheesecake. The audience ate it up. "You get a long stick and a copy of COUNTRYSIDE & SMALL STOCK JOURNAL and you go sit next to the Eggmobile. You read COUNTRYSIDE and every little while you use the long stick to sweep under the Eggmobile and chase the chickens out."

According to Mr. Salatin, after a couple of evenings of this, the chickens will walk right up the ramp and roost the night away. He also advises folks to move their Eggmobiles in the early morning. This way the critters will still be asleep when they are moved, saving the farmer the aggravation of a mid-day clucking chicken round-up.

There are no critters left behind at Polyface farm. The turkeys, rabbits, and pigs are all in on the grazing act. Pastured turkeys are moved every couple of days using moveable netted electrical fencing, in much the same manner as the cows. The turkeys eat enormous amounts of grass in addition to their grain stipend. If they want to nap in shade after feasting they are welcome to do so in the Gobbledygo, a covered hoop hut which moves from pasture to pasture with the turkeys.

He wasn't three words into the first sentence about forage-based meat rabbits when hands went to waving. From somewhere in the back an incredulous soul blurted out his disbelief. Hands stopped waving and heads started nodding. The consensus appeared to be absolute, rabbits fed forage would most certainly develop the bunny hops, the rabbit scampers, or shall we say, diarrhea.

There was that grin again. This was not the grin of someone who keeps loose bowelled bunnies; this was the beam of someone in the know. It seems Daniel Salatin, Joel's son, solved this problem back in the 1980s. A 4-H project led him to develop a breed of hardy meat rabbits that do well on forage. In fact, rabbits at Polyface farm are finished on pasture in portable shelters.

Then there is the Pigaerator; it's more of a concept than a contraption. In the spring, when the cows are turned out to pasture, they leave behind a pack of straw, woodchips, and manure. Over the winter months Mr. Salatin sprinkles corn on the savory cow pie casserole as a sort of seasoning for the discerning taste buds of his hogs. When the cows have gone the pigs are invited in to feast. They root and tear through the tasty stew looking for the corn. In no time at all the pile has been thoroughly turned and aerated into superior compost. Their bellies bursting, the Pigaerators are turned out into savannah pastures to graze in the fresh Shenandoah air. Like the other animals, they are rotated every few days using portable electric fences.

In ancient times Noah was called to collect the animals onto the Ark to ride out the mother of all toad stranglers. Today, Joel Salatin is just as determined to get all of them on pasture, because another storm is brewing. He points to erratic weather patterns, rising planetary temperatures, rising sea levels, and man made gasses trapped in the atmosphere. A lion's share of the planet's ills can be linked directly to confinement farming, over dependence on grain based feeds, and poor land stewardship. If I remember the tale of the Great Flood correctly, Noah's people didn't heed his warnings. There's a mistake worth not repeating.

Hearing Joel Salatin speak is nothing short of inspirational. He may not be an old time preacher but he has an important message and he tells it on the mountains, over the hills, and everywhere. He's out to save us from ourselves, one family farm at a time. By the time the presentation ended I was as fired up about forgiveness farming.

I moved through the exit with the throngs of other inspired farmers. A fellow grazier passed me, "That was something, huh? He's got good ideas."

Joel Salatin

That's when the afore mentioned hearty "Amen" escaped. I couldn't help it.

There was still a good half hour before the next scheduled presentation. I headed straight for the trade show area. A couple of laps around the exhibitions and I would be able to work off some of my pent up enthusiasm, or so I thought. I wasn't two feet through the door of the trade show when I bumped into someone else who would stir my excitement some more. I'll share all the details next time. Until then, keep your swampers handy and watch out for toad stranglers.